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earlyblackparade · 2 years ago

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Ray Toro of My Chemical Romance

July 16, 2007 | Lisa Sharken | seymourduncan.com

Meet Ray Toro, guitarist with New Jersey’s red-hot alternative punk-pop rocker group, My Chemical Romance. We had the chance for a long distance chat before MCR hit the stage in Germany to support its highly acclaimed new disc, The Black Parade. In just a few short years that included lots of touring and self-promotion, MCR quickly grew from a local indie sensation to an international phenomenon with a loyal and ever-increasing fan base.

Toro filled us in on what inspired him during his formative years as a musician and detailed the gear he uses live. We also got the scoop on how MCR crafted its monstrous guitar tones in the studio and what’s in store for the group in 2007. There’s a lot to look forward to and no doubt that we’ll be hearing a great deal more from these Jersey boys. The future is looking bright and seems to hold even greater success for this very promising new band!

Which players had the greatest influence on your musical style? My two biggest influences have always been Randy Rhoads and Brian May. I was a fan of Randy Rhoads because he was one of the first players I can remember who mixed classical music with a metal and hard rock style of playing, and he did it very tastefully. It was really inspiring. “Dee” was just so moving because he wrote it for his mother and it was a classically-influenced piece. What I like about Brian May is that he views the guitar like an orchestra. His guitar playing is very symphonic. I’m just a huge fan of how he layers and harmonizes things like an arranger or a conductor. A little later, probably because of Randy Rhoads’ influence, I started listening to classical guitarists like Andrès Segovia and Christopher Parkening. I was obsessed with the way they would take classical pieces and arrange them for a single guitar with the way they have moving melody and bass lines that work together. Segovia was one of the guys who made classical guitar a respected instrument. When guitarists first started playing like that it wasn’t really looked upon as artistic. He traveled the world and was a champion for having classical guitar recognized as a concert instrument. Parkening was Segovia’s student and he carried on his legacy.

Have your listening tastes changed? Do you still listen to the music that influenced you when you started? Yes. I don’t listen to much new stuff. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a music snob. I think that I’ve always been very careful about listening to current music and being influenced by it. I’m afraid of stealing stuff from it. But there are a couple of new bands that I like, Muse being one of them. I love Muse. They have great guitar work and great songwriting. They’re one of the few new bands that I can listen to nowadays. But pretty much, I just listen to the same stuff I used to listen to when I was younger.

With older music, do you tend to pick out things you hadn’t noticed before when you listen now? Yes. That’s the best thing about music. Depending on what situation you’re in when you’re listening, you’re just in a certain head space and you’ll pick up on little things that you never heard before, especially when you’re listening to stuff like Queen or Pink Floyd. You’ll pick out things like harmonies or nuances in the guitar playing or singing, or you’ll hear little mistakes. I recently listened to Led Zeppelin and noticed that sometimes Jimmy Page’s guitar was going out of tune while they were recording, but it adds character. If you listen to “Stairway To Heaven,” you’ll hear how he’s doubling certain things on an acoustic guitar and he’s playing the same thing on an electric, and it’s panned left to right. These are things that I never used to pick up on when I was younger. But now I can hear those things and it gives me a different appreciation for the music.

When you had first heard these songs, was it on vinyl or CD? Most of the time you never could hear those very fine details as clearly on the original vinyl records as you could on remastered CDs, or even on the original version CDs. You’re right. The first time I listened to stuff like Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Queen it was actually through my older brother and he had all this on vinyl. He was a huge influence on me and he was the one who showed me how to play guitar. He bought me my first real guitar and he introduced me to all that stuff. He introduced me to bands like Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, and also Motley Crue and Metallica. So he was my gateway into guitar playing and those styles of music.

Let’s talk about your gear. What are you currently using live? Right now I’m using Marshall JCM 2000s® the DSL100 with two 1960A cabinets. I don’t use many pedals. I’m very basic. I just have a Dunlop Crybaby wah, Boss EQ pedal, Boss Pitch Shifter to do harmonies, Boss Chorus Ensemble, and Electro-Harmonix POG Polyphonic Octave Generator, which you can set up to play one octave below, an octave above, or two octaves above. You can make your guitar sound like a Hammond B3 organ when you use that in combination with the chorus pedal. It’s a really cool pedal. My main guitar right now is a Gibson Les Paul Standard that I think is either from ’91 or ’93 which I picked up while on tour. I have Seymour Duncan Phat Cat (SPH90-1) P90-style pickups in it which are the size of a humbucker. They’re amazing. I’m really psyched about them. I have another Les Paul Standard which is probably from ’93 and it has a Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) in the bridge position and the neck pickup is whatever came on the guitar. My brother was the person who had turned me onto the JB. It was the first after market pickup I bought because he said that I had to get a Seymour Duncan JB!

What do you like most about your Duncan pickups and what types of tones do you go for with each of them? For the Phat Cats, I call it a “meat and potatoes” tone. It’s very thick and punchy, just in the right spots. I use the guitar with the JB for songs that need a little more edge and more gain. The JB has a hotter tone and more gain than I get with the Phat Cats. It works really well for songs that are a little more riffy. A lot of our older material has more riffing going on with lots of single-note picked riffs, and there’s a lot more playing. On the new stuff, the guitar parts are a bit more simple. There are more chugging power chords and things like that. I find that the Phat Cats are better for that kind of stuff and I use the JB for the more shredding songs.

How are your guitars set up? The action is not too low or too high. It’s at that sweet point. I’ve never been a fan of guitars with really low action. I know it can help you play faster, and I get that aspect of it, but you don’t feel like you’re playing. You can’t dig in. It feels almost too easy. As far as strings, I use .011-.052 S.I.T. strings. For picks, I’ve always used Dunlop black nylon 1 mm picks. I think that’s what my brother used and I’ve used them since I started playing guitar.

How do you and Frank Iero [MCR guitarist] differ as players? What are the most recognizable characteristics you each possess? I’m more of a technical player. On the records, I play all the solos. I’m more into the harmonization of parts, so the harmonized leads on the records are usually me. I guess that’s what I bring to the band and my metal influence. Frank is kind of the counter to that. He’s very rhythmic in his playing and his lines. He plays all of the octave runs and the choruses, and the counter melodies to the main rhythm parts in the verses are his. The way he writes is very linked with what the vocals are doing. He listens very closely to what Gerard [Way, MCR vocalist] is doing and he finds a way to reinforce the melodies that Gerard is singing, but he adds some of his own things to it that either harmonize with what Gerard is doing vocally or with what I’m doing. He finds a really cool way of just fitting in the mix and hitting melodies that your ear wants to hear that fills in those gaps. He’s really good at coming up with very cool melodic lines on the verses and choruses. It’s a cool relationship that we have. Technically, he plays more of the leads, in a sense, and I play the rhythms, but I’m playing more of the leads in a solo sense. It’s just very different depending on which song it is and we do whatever works best for the song.

Did your studio rig for recording The Black Parade differ much from the gear you use live? We used the guitars we play live as our main guitars in the studio. I’m not a big gearhead. I go more on feel and I’m used to the way that my guitar feels. I’m comfortable with it, so that’s what I used predominantly for the whole record, unless there were certain songs or parts that called for different tones that my guitar just didn’t sound right for. The main guitar I used was the Les Paul with Phat Cats. When we went into preproduction in Los Angeles, my DSL100 that I use live broke down. So [producer] Rob Cavallo let me borrow a 100 watt Marshall JCM 800 series head which was the loudest and ballsiest amp I’ve ever heard. Since it sounded so good in preproduction, we used it on the recording. I’m not sure what model cabinet we were running it through, but it was a Marshall. That was the main setup. On occasion when we were going for different textures, like throwing in an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff or another distortion pedal, or any other kinds of effects, we usually ran it through a Hiwatt head. That was pretty much it. We tried to stick to the basics and not get too crazy. We did use a Roland midi guitar synthesizer for all sorts of cool sounds. We used that any time there was a heavier riff on the record. We usually doubled it two octaves lower than the actual note. A lot of the stuff you’re hearing is just straight guitar tones that are very layered. On certain songs, like “The End,” which is the intro to the record, when the tone gets really heavy and the single-note riff comes in, we stacked it by tracking the lowest octave on the guitar to the highest. It’s that Brian May-type mentality of making the guitars very symphonic. Once in a while there’s a chorus pedal or a phaser, but we’re not a very heavy effects-driven band. We like to plug straight into the amp and go. Rob has a huge collection of stompboxes and that’s how we were introduced to the POG. He’s got tons of vintage guitars too, and we used a few of them. For clean verses, like on “Mama” and “I Don’t Love You,” we were using one of his Teles. I think I used one of his Strats for the solo in “I Don’t Love You.” So we did use other guitars for certain parts, but the guitars we play live were the main ones used to record.

Using your own guitars also makes it a bit easier to recreate the sounds on the record when you go out to play the songs live. Yes. And like I said, for me, the most important thing is being comfortable. Obviously, every guitar plays different and you just get used to how certain guitars feel. I think that when you’re comfortable with the guitar that you’re playing, you’ll play better.

Do you have any particular favorite tracks from the album? My two favorite tracks are “Welcome To The Black Parade” and “Famous Last Words.” “Welcome To The Black Parade” is like our “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s probably the most epic song on the record. I love how it came together. It’s a song that we had been writing since the start of the band, but it started out in a very different form. It started out very similar to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” which sounds really weird as a comparison. It was very slow and very chordal-based. The melody that Gerard would sing and just his style of singing was, well the closest thing it sounded like to to us was “My Way.” And it used to be called “The Five Of Us Are Dying.” It didn’t make our first indie record because we just didn’t have the time to finish it. We brought it back for Revenge, and it was another situation where it just wasn’t feeling right. So it didn’t make that record. Then it was one of the first things we looked at when we started writing this record. If a song didn’t work for the first or second record, we like to go back and revisit it because sometimes you just don’t have it in you to write the song at that particular time. That song had about five or six different movements and the closest thing I could relate it to is Green Day’s “Jesus Of Suburbia,” where you have all these different parts of a song which all work together. When we moved to LA to work on the record, we decided that the song still wasn’t working, so we tried adding that fast punk beat and then it felt really good. We tracked the whole thing and then Gerard felt that the lyrics weren’t saying anything to him, and neither was the chorus. So we changed a few things. What’s really cool when you write music is sometimes all you have to do is change a chord progression and that completely changes the face of the song. So we basically just changed one note in the chorus and it let Gerard go somewhere else that he wouldn’t have gone, and that’s where the hook of the song came from. I just have very fond memories of that song because it started out in a completely different form. It’s been a part of this band for five years, and it took that long to really finish the song and define what it truly was about. Then on top of that, the song was just so much fun to record with all the horns, the piano, backing vocals, and do all the layering with the parts. It was a very complex and fun song to record. Five years ago we would never have thought that the song would have ended up becoming what it did. “Famous Last Words” is another of my favorites because lyrically and musically, it’s not one of the most uplifting songs on the record. I just think the song is very powerful. It’s a little simpler than “Black Parade” in a sense, but it has those same movements. It starts out very small with just the vocal and single guitar, then it grows from there and gets to this apex, then breaks down again only to get brought back up. That was one of my favorite songs to write and record. It was written very late in the writing process, and at a very hard time. I think that the song is an example of showing things that the band went through because we went through some hard times and ended up coming out on top. When I listen to it now, it makes me think of that period in the recording process.

The band has grown so much in a short time and achieved a great deal of acclaim, particularly with this album. The band has always moved very fast, even from the beginning when it was just three of us. We’ve always found ourselves in these situations where it was “put up or shut up.” I guess it’s just our attitude and where we come from as people, and what we’ve gone through growing up. We just never quit and we work our asses off. That’s what we have always done. So things have moved fast, but for us it’s like a lifetime of work. As far as the musical side of things, I think this band tends to think one or two records ahead into the future. There was a time before we started writing for The Black Parade, when we were almost writing the album that should have come out after Revenge. A lot of the songs were similar feeling and similar sounding to what we did on Revenge, and a lot of that got scrapped once we really started writing for The Black Parade. After we had written “The End” into “Dead!,” we would rehearse them and we linked those two songs together. We knew they didn’t feel like anything we had done before. We thought that those songs raised the bar for us, and a lot of the songs that we had been writing on tour and some of the songs that were written while we were in New York got scrapped after that because they didn’t measure up. The writing process was fun because we were always trying to match what we had done the week before or even surpass it. We always try to top ourselves, and not only in albums, but also from song to song.

Has touring become more exciting for the band this time around? You spend so many months writing and recording the record, and during that time the record is just yours. It’s the band’s and just the four or five guys who worked on the recording. You sometimes play it for select people, but no one actually has a copy to take home and listen to. What’s great is that finally after six or seven months of writing and recording, the record is now out there “living” and being a part of peoples’ lives. To finally be able to play those songs live for people, it’s just the best. Our fans have been awesome and just super supportive through all of this. They’re excited to hear new stuff. But we’ve never been in this position before because when we wrote Revenge we were a very small indie band and no one was really excited for Revenge to come out. We built it up to where it got, but when that album came out there weren’t many people who were excited, and we built it from there. It was completely different from this experience where we’ve now built up a fan base and they are excited to hear the new music. So it was very nerve wracking because you want people to appreciate what you did — what you worked hard for and worked hard on. The fans have been awesome and we’re finding that they are singing the new songs louder than the older stuff at the shows. It’s that support and an over all sense from people that they really love the new record. It just feels great to go out there and play these songs for people.

What does the band have planned for 2007 and what are you looking forward to most in the coming year? We’ll be touring more and more in 2007. Right now we’re doing smaller shows just to get our feet wet and play live. We were off for so long recording that it takes a while to get back in shape and you just want to ease into it. It’s been cool to get reacquainted with the fans and reacquainted with playing live. Next year is when we’re going to step up the show a notch and bring out more production, so the shows will be bigger and the songs will feel bigger. Right now we’re playing the songs a little more stripped down than we would like, but it’s just to get reacquainted and get back into playing live. In 2007 we’re going to play a lot of parts of the world where we’ve never been before. Playing your first show in a new country is the most exciting thing, and that excitement never goes away. There are a lot of places where we haven’t played yet, so I think that’s what I’m most looking forward to.

Tell us about what you recall to have been your most memorable gig or gigs with the band so far. On this tour, the first show that we played was in Bournemouth, England. It’s a pretty cool place and that gig was awesome. We had such a great time and it was nice to get back and play real shows again. We had been doing a lot of tv and radio performances leading up to the release of the record, and then after that as well. But those performances just didn’t feel like real shows. It was maybe one or two songs, or even if we played a full set, the place was lit for tv so I couldn’t get into the vibe of those shows. So this gig in Bournemouth was the first show we played in a while where it was a real My Chem show, and it felt great to play the old songs again and to finally play the new material. The audience was really great and it was a lot of fun to get back out there. As far as past memorable gigs, we played Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, which was just awesome. I used to go to shows there all the time there to see my favorite bands like Metallica. My brother took me to that show and it was just incredible. To play places like that, those are the shows that usually go down in my memory as my favorites — when you have a direct connection to that venue or that city, it makes it just that much more special.

I’m sure there were a lot of hometown people there who were cheering you on. Yes. Our families usually end up being the loudest people in the crowd.

That can sometimes make you even more nervous compared to playing in front of people you don’t know. It is true because you definitely want to play your best and give them a good show. That’s usually what you’re thinking about. But it’s distracting when you’re looking out in the crowd and trying to find your family and all the people you know.

What advice would you give to other players who are trying to create their own identity in a two-guitar band? The best way to create your own style is to just be yourself. You can be influenced by what other people do and take the little bits that you like from the different players that you appreciate, but never completely cop someone’s style. Put your own flavor to it. Play what makes you feel good and that’s how you develop your own style. One of the fun things about playing with another guitarist is working on parts together. It’s kind of what music is about — working together as a team. When two guitar players can bring in what they do, make it bigger and better, learn from each other and influence each other, that’s a cool thing. Frank and I have been able to do that and we’ve kind of rubbed off on each other. It’s great to have that experience and it helps you to grow as a musician.

For the latest news on My Chemical Romance and updated tour information, visit the band’s official website at www.mychemicalromance.com.

#mcr #2007 #july 2007 #ray toro #music #interview #gear

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aeschtunes · 6 days ago

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Remembering Randy Rhoads from Quiet Riot

(December 6, 1956-March 19, 1982)

#music #randy rhoads #quiet riot

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disco-cola · 9 months ago

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I made a post about randy rhoads on tiktok two days ago bc I feel so many people know he died in a plane crash but not the heartbreaking circumstances behind it (same with cliff and the card drawing game) and a lot of people are commenting how they have seen him live or remember where they were when they heard the news on the radio or saying they didnt even know about this I’m honestly so glad the video is being seen and people are still so interested in him bc that story is so heartbreaking it’s actually insane he was such a goodhearted cute little bean

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fkyumerica · 1 year ago

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then they start killing her with drugs, no tits, im an ass man

and her on top of her killing her she thinks its funny

now he might have friends outside

this is when I kill them and hand them off

hey remember when we hahah she fell asleep with a lethal injection haha they came in party house

they would just leave shit for anyone

they would hand these guys infants, mustache

and fake wives after o take care of them to be demon scary, and hold a erecction, whats a cut off dick fad mom?

fad meant fit it in we put em in pants

do it now

ok, unties it tube urethra from infant he is fucking got the tube from his grandma at the new hospital do they support straws we lied

cum in 18

he is in the show stranger things

and takes it out and he fucks another infant hsi mom handed him

now he grip ties its throat around and throws it in water

then water revive it was the movie 'imprint'

then his gay dad gets shot inn the face

so did i

didnt do it yet, gay fucks a bitch in a garaage and shes beyonce

and him revivedd. a teacher now.

just gay dope.

they let it out too.

frankenstein.

still? whore him

ramirez

then he was

blonde, randy rhoads

oh no she knows

im no daddy

wtf

make him blonde bill

i can live then i shot bill now im ricky

yea no what if

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confessionsofanangrymetalhead · 1 year ago

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I knew I needed to go to this as soon as I heard that Shadows Fall, who had regrouped in 2021 after an indefinite hiatus that lasted seven years and saw drummer Jason Bittner join Flotsam and Jetsam and eventually Overkill, and lead guitar GOD Jonathan Donais join Anthrax, intended on performing their 2004 CLASSIC, The War Within in its entirety. That was fucking huge news! But for those of you who might be clueless, let’s discuss why! The Importance of The War Within The War Within, the band’s fourth album and third with vocalist Brian Fair, is the most important album in the band’s entire catalog. It was released on the heels of their previous album, 2002’s The Art of Balance, which went on to sell over 100,000 copies in a time when album sales were steadily declining. You bet your ass I was one of those 100,000 people who actually bought the fucking record! I even saw Shadows Fall live for the first time a year later during an Ozzfest off-date. Having come from the New Wave of American Heavy Metal scene that was largely based in the Northeast and spawned bands such as Aftershock and Overcast – those two bands being the roots of Shadows Fall and especially Killswitch Engage – alongside All That Remains (Phil Labonte was actually the vocalist on Shadows Fall’s 1997 debut, Somber Eyes to The Sky), God Forbid (more on that band later!), Mastodon and Lamb of God, the sound was largely a mix of Hardcore breakdowns and Metallic intensity. Unfortunately, this became Metalcore. But Shadows Fall were different. Via Brain Fair’s roots in Overcast, especially after he joined Shadows Fall for their second album, 2000’s Of One Blood, the hardcore influence could be heard. But thanks to those riffs that scream Iron Maiden AND Morbid Angel, along with Jon Donais’ Randy Rhoads meets Zakk Wylde lead guitar style, they were far more Metal than Hardcore. By the time The War Within was released, the press at large had been calling them the next Metallica for two years, thanks to The Art of Balance. With TWW, the guitars were even stronger than on the last album, the drums were harder hitting, the production was clearer, and the song writing was even stronger. The album had debuted at #28 on the Billboard charts. I was a first day buyer, taking to bus to Sam Goody right after I finished with class for the day. It’d earned them sales of almost 400,000 copies – a FIRST for Century Media Records! – their first main stage slot on the next year’s Ozzfest (the last time I saw them live), and eventually, a major label deal with Atlantic Records. I still remember driving from Staten Island to Starland Ballroom to see Mastodon in May of 2005. I was on Rt 9, driving over the water, WSOU (more on them momentarily) on the radio, when the DJ announced that The War Within had sold 200,000 copies. The was incredible to hear; it meant a lot to the fans, I’m sure, and it meant a lot to the underground Metal scene, especially with Lamb of God releasing their major label debut nine months prior, and Mastodon very close to signing their own major label deal. The Show The show, I’m pretty sure was organized by WSOU, the top college station in terms of playing underground Heavy Metal for DECADES. My first exposure to WSOU in the early months of 1997 happened by mistake. I was looking for another station when I came across this one station that happened to be blasting Death Metal, the likes of which my 7th grade, dumbass self had never heard before and I’d assumed that this had to be the station. It wasn’t, but I clearly still listened up until they were forced to change their format right at the beginning of 2002. They eventually were able to revert back to their prior format; but they had to fight hard to make it happen. It’s been my first show at Starland since I saw Zakk Sabbath in 2017. And before that, the last time I’d been there was most likely the 2008 Summer Slaughter tour, with such a shitty lineup that I totally forgot that it was the last time I saw The Black Dahlia Murder! But I spent a good thre...

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jeffcbliss · 6 years ago

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Michael "Angelo" Batio formerly of Nitro - as part of the Randy Rhoads tribute show, Randy Rhoads Remembered - Yost Theater; Santa Ana, CA (1-24-19).

Photo: Jeff Bliss

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randyrhoadsstudent · 6 years ago

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Really nice!

#rudy sarzo remembers randy rhoads

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thegrayhairedman · 2 years ago

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Randy Rhoads

Ozzy Osbourne once said that Randy Rhoads was an angel for him. And he was right: for me he will forever be a bright angel too. I love him and admire his music, his sincerity in every movement, the fiery fire on the stage, his clear mind and honest heart. I know for sure - the world needs Randy Rhoads. But he still does a lot for those who remember him.

If you want to buy this art for production or get it in the best resolution without a watermark, then go to my patreon! I also take orders for the creation of portraits, characters and illustrations.

https://www.patreon.com/thegrayhairedman https://www.behance.net/the_gray_haired_man

#randy rhoads #ozzy osbourne #quet riot #fanart #illustration #digital illustration

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greenwood106-blog · 2 years ago

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66 Years And The Legend Continues

December is generally known for Santa, Trees, and Reindeer, but for me and many others, December has been so much more.

Let's start with the good.

On this day in 1956 in Santa Monica, California, Randy Rhoads was born. His mother was a music instructor, and over the few years of his life, Randy became one of the greatest guitarists ever.

At 17 Randy formed Quiet Riot with bassist Kelli Garni. Quiet Riot developed a huge fan base and had record deals overseas, but could never land one here while Randy was in the band.

In 1979, Rhoads met his destiny when he auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne, who had been kicked out of Black Sabbath and was starting a solo band.

I heard him at a friend's house. when he dropped the needle and I Don't Know started on the debut album Blizzard of Ozz, my life was changed forever. I knew then that I wanted to play guitar.

I remember night after night working to learn I Don't Know on a guitar my dad owned. His guitar was very hard to play, and we had no internet the, so it was listen and try to play it until my fingers literally bled.

The second album was Diary of a Madman and the tour came through Phoenix on New Year's Day 1982. At that age, I snuck out and went to many concerts, since concerts only cost $10 back then. But for some reason, I chose not to go to this show, a decision I still to this day regret.

After their show in Knoxville, TN on March 18, the tour bus was headed for Florida. It stopped in Leesburg, Florida to work on the bus. The driver knew the owner of the place they stopped. He was a licensed pilot and convinced Randy to take a flight with him.

He flew too close and clipped the bus and flipped directly into the house and burst into flames. At just 25 years old, Randy Rhoads was gone.

Back then we didn't have 24 news outlets, so it was the next day or so when the newspaper had the news of his death. I can still see the article.

At one point in my youth, my walls were covered of pics of Ozzy and Randy. I remember Elvis Presley and John Lennon dying and the way it impacted people, but I was fairly new to their music. Randy was the first person who was such an influence on me to pass away.

Randy was also the inspiration to teach guitar. He used to say he learned more from teaching than ever would have imagined. Man was he right. Teaching taught me a tremendous amount, and it made teaching and sharing my love for guitar a real joy.

This year, Randy Rhoads: Reflections of a Guitar Icon was released. A documentary 40 years after his death that showed he was still an impactful player that still influences young players.

To have such an impact in such a short life tells you what a force he was.

#randy rhoads #guitar #ozzy osbourne #quiet riot

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crazycrackersworld · 3 years ago

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In remembrance of the birthday of Randy Rhoads, I listened to Dee about 27 times today.

Randy was only the second famous person who's death affected me in any way. The first had been Lennon of course.

I was getting into harder rock and Heavy Metal at a pretty young age. It just spoke to me, like no other music, or poetry, or anything else. I mean it's like Brodie says in the movie Deathgasm..."It's like, when life sucks, and and you feel alone and empty, stick on some metal and life is better because somebody else knows the pain and the rage you're going through." At least that is one way to describe how it makes me feel.

So I was discovering this whole new world of music, and Ozzy had this guitar player, Randy Rhoads, and how her played was simply amazing. Mixing classical guitar with shreddingly HEAVY riffs. Those first two Ozzy solo records are...well they are just magic. So many GREAT songs.

On this day and the anniversary of his death in march, I invariably wondered myself just what else he would have been able to accomplish that he lived you know? Ozzy and other people have said that Randy was playing on leaving hard rock or heavy metal after that second tour and concentrate more on classical guitar. Any probably would have done that but I don't think you would have left the Rock in his rear view mirror forever I think he would have maybe gotten a degree or something in classical and then went back and just totally once again reinvented the wheel as far as heavy metal guitar playing.

And it's not just his guitar playing or you know him helping write songs from everything I've ever read about him or interviews that I've seen that he did or interviews that I've read that he did or just people talking about him, it seems like he was just genuinely a very nice down to earth beautiful human being. See you today try to remember Saint Randy Rhoads.

And if you want to musically feel him or be reminded I would highly suggest that you listen to the song Dee(written for his mom), Over the Mountain, Crazy Train, Mr. Crowley, Goodby to Romance, and the live version of Suicide Solution (with the guitar solo).

Of course if you can I would also just recommend listening to all of Blizzard of Ozz, Diary of a Madman, and Ozzy Osbourne/Randy Rhoads Tribute.

Remember some years ago when my friend Andy and I drove to Cleveland for a Manowar concert, and of course because we were in Cleveland and he and his friends wanted to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I frankly was indifferent about whether or not we went I really wasn't too blown away by it, the fact that it like closes at 7:00 on a Saturday rock and roll doesn't close at 7:00 on a Saturday why should the Hall of Fame.

Most of the things there are on loan or have been donated by their respective owners you're not allowed to take pictures even without a flash inside. Which I also it's always dumb I mean if you're not using a flash you're not going to hurt anything. But I do remember seeing it hanging on the wall just right there.

I'd seen pictures I've seen her in videos, but being that close so just a thin pane of glass between me and her and how beautiful she is. It was that custom black with white polka dots flying v the guitar most people think of when they think of Randy Rhoads and it was right there I stood for at least a 10 full minutes just staring at that guitar and talking to Randy and thanking him for music that has lived on far longer than he was able to be here with us and that alone did eventually make going to the Hall of Fame worth it.

#music is life #randy rhoads

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classic-rock-roller · 6 years ago

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Random Rock Facts I Know

Some may be true some may be folklore. These are just “facts” I’ve head over the years

1) Ronnie James Dio didn’t like Rainbow in the Dark because he thought it wasn’t heavy enough

2) Mick Mars has guitars with air painted boobs on them for the Girls Girls Girls tour

3) Randy Rhoads was a founding member of Quiet Riot

4) Rudy Sarzo taught at Randy Rhoads’ mom’s school Musonia. He taught bass guitar there

5) Nikki Sixx and Robbin Crosby of Ratt were really good friends

6) Axl Rose is an anagram for oral sex (I had to literally look at it and figure it out to make sure that it was true)

7) The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” was written after the banning of rock music in Iran

8) Jimmy Page dated a 14-year-old girl while he was touring with Led Zeppelin (everyone just seems to like to gloss over this fact but no it's true)

9) Lynyrd Skynyrd got their name from a high school teacher, Leonard Skinner, who suspended students for having long hair

10) Zeppelin came up with the title “Black Dog” after a large black labrador walked into the studio while recording

11) Eric Clapton wrote the song “Layla” for Pattie Boyd, George Harrison’s wife (She later married Eric Clapton after being divorced from George Harrison and then she divorced Eric Clapton)

12) Each member of Nirvana was kicked out of the Nevermind release party for starting a food fight (Kind of funny considering Mötley and so many other bands have done SO MUCH worse)

13) Prince’s “Purple Rain” is a tribute to the Jimi Hendrix song “Purple Haze”

14) Queen has the longest-running fan club according to the Guinness book of world records

15) Pink Floyd’s “Money” has the first curse word that was regularly played on the radio

16) The Famous opening on Derek and the Dominos “Layla” is not Eric Clapton. It’s Duane Allman.

17) Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA was the first CD to be pressed in the United States

18) Having made $18,000, Jimi Hendrix was the highest-paid musician at Woodstock

19) Sharon Osbourne’s Pomeranian was once saved from a coyote attack when Ozzy tackled the wild animal and wrestled it until the dog was released

20) Eddie Van Halen recorded a guitar solo specifically for Back to the Future because (If I remember correctly) the movie didn’t have money to pay the record company to use one of Van Halen’s song so Eddie just recorded something for the movie

21) When Van Halen was first signed, the record company didn’t like David Lee Roth and they wanted the current singer of Montrose (Sammy Hagar) to take over singing for David in 1977

22) Jack Black filmed himself begging in order to get Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” into “School of Rock”

23) Ozzy Osbourne thought “This is Spinal Tap” was an actual documentary the first time he saw it

24) Black Sabbath wrote the hit song “Paranoid” in 20 minutes to fill the remaining 3 minutes of time on their upcoming album.

25) John Bonham was Tony Iommi’s best man at his wedding.

26) The female elevator operator in Aerosmith’s Love in an Elevator music video is Playboy playmate Brandi Brandt who that same year married bassist Nikki Sixx.

27) Led Zeppelin performed in Demark as “The Nobs” after Eva Von Zeppelin, a relative of the late airship designer, Ferdinand Von Zeppelin, threatens to sue.

28) Kiss’ very first comic book has all four of the member’s blood in the ink.

29) Led Zeppelin was forced to cancel a gig in Singapore when local officials, seeing their long hair, refuse to let them off the plane.

30) George Harrison had his tonsils removed and destroyed so that they couldn’t be sold.

#rock facts #classic rock #metal

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 4 years ago

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When Hair Metal Was King: The Sunset Strip in the 1980’s

Guns N’ Roses was a Los Angeles band. They had all met during the 1980’s on the Sunset Strip. An important part of their story involves the Strip during that time. In order to understand the group as a band, I think it is relevant to take a look at the music scene in LA in the early to mid-1980’s. The Sunset Strip had long been a hotbed of rock music in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. In the late 1970’s, the music scene became grittier and dirtier as bands went from glam rock to punk rock. Yet, everything began to change into decadence with the arrival of Motley Crue in 1981.

A new genre of music, glam or hair metal, began to overtake the Strip fully embraced by Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and Tommy Lee of Motley Crue. As they began to make a name for themselves musically at clubs along the Strip, they moved into an apartment right by the Whiskey A Go-Go. They would hold after hours parties at their place that soon took on the stuff of legends. Vince Neil would later say, “We played the Whisky, half the crowd would come back to our house and drink and do blow, smack, Percodan, quaaludes, and whatever else we could get for free… There would be members of punk-scene remnants like 45 Grave and the Circle Jerks coming to our almost nightly parties while guys in metal newborns like Ratt and W.A.S.P. spilled out into the courtyard and the street. Girls would arrive in shifts. One would be climbing out the window while another was coming in the door.” He would go on to say in his autobiography, “We’d get drunk, do crazy amounts of cocaine and walk the circuit in stiletto heels, stumbling all over the place. The Sunset Strip was a cesspool of depravity.” The group would be discovered by a record company talent scout who saw the hundreds of kids wearing tight leather and big hair waiting in line to see them. Soon enough, more and more bands began to pop up including W.A.S.P. and LA Guns. A little later groups like Faster Pussycat Kill and Poison showed up on the scene. These bands begin to do more and more outrageous things in order to bring attention to their live show. For example, W.A.S.P. would throw raw meat into the crowd. Not to be outdone, Motley Crue would have Nikki Sixx pour gasoline on his leather pants, then at some point Vince Neil would set him on fire during the show.

One of the centers of the metal glam scene on the Strip was Tower Records. The store was for the most part completely employed by local musicians. Some would say that when you walked into the place; everybody that worked there looked like they were in Motley Crue. Axl Rose would become a manager at Tower, even hiring Slash to work there until he was fired. Columnist Alison Martino recalls, “Everybody from Elton John to David Bowie to Van Halen, they were all in Tower Records. I saw all of them there, buying their own records. I remember seeing Valerie Bertinelli with her mother at Tower Records the week that ‘Jump!’ came out. They used to have on the wall all the number one singles. I remember she went up to the cover of the ‘Jump!’ 45 and turned it around to see Eddie’s face and left it that way.”

Headbangers would line up all along the Strip at night, so much so that you could not even walk on the sidewalk. They would all be waiting to get into clubs like the Troubadour, Roxy, Gazzara’s, the Whiskey, and more. More than 75 bands would be competing for headlining slots at these clubs, which would eventually include Guns N’ Roses. For a while, this was merely a local music phenomenon until Quiet Riot released their album, Metal Health, eventually reaching number one on the charts. This event changed everything as record companies began to sign Los Angeles-based hair bands left and right from that moment on. Hair metal represented the most popular kind of music in the country. This led to people migrating from the northwest like Duff McKagan or from the Midwest like Izzy Stradlin and Axl Rose to become rich and famous chasing their rock and roll dreams. Another such band was Poison, who came all the way from Pennsylvania sensing that Los Angeles was the only place that they could make their name. As these bands fought for fans along the Strip, advertising on a flyer became ultra competitive. There would be flyers posted everywhere promoting in the most creative of ways usually emphasizing sex and drugs. Each morning, along with the plethora of booze bottles lining the streets, there could be found fliers everywhere making Sunset Boulevard look like New Orleans after Mardi Gras.

Another center for the hair band movement on the Strip was the Rainbow Bar and Grill. This place opened in 1972 to host rock and Hollywood royalty like John Lennon, Ringo Starr, John Belushi, and Elton John. Lemmy Klimster of Motörhead had become a mainstay at the corner of the bar for a very long time playing games on the video machine. Tommy Lee offered up this assessment of the Rainbow. “When the clubs began to close, we’d go to the Rainbow. The place was set up like a circle, with the coolest rockers and richest deviants sitting at the center tables. Guys had to be twenty-one to come into the club, but girls could be eighteen. The guys would sit at their regular spots and the girls would walk around the ring until they were called over to someone’s empty chair... Afterward, everyone would spill out into the parking lot: Randy Rhoads, Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist, would be hanging upside down from a tree screaming while junkies tried to score dope and everyone else tried to scam on girls.” No matter where you went along the strip at that time, you were bound to see some sort of insanity going on. Stephen Pearcy, lead singer of Ratt recalls, “I saw so many people f*** on the lawns behind Gazzarri’s that I actually got bored of watching and started to throw empty beer cans at them.” For its part, the Rainbow usually only saw people having sex in the bathroom stalls, not its lawn, but on occasion the dumpster.

The strange but true thing about all of these bands trying to get discovered on the Strip was that they were seemingly connected in some way. The 6 degrees of separation of all these groups has been noted by writers looking back at that music scene. Slash almost ended up in the band Poison. Tracii Guns of LA Guns helped to form the Guns found in Guns N’ Roses. GNR had a bit of a feud with Motley Crue, who’s founder Nikki Sixx once played in a band with Tracii Guns. The feud would later escalate to national headlines as guitarist Izzy Stradlin began hitting on Vince Neil‘s wife at a party. Axl Rose then got involved, which saw Vince Neil state on MTV News that he wanted to challenge Rose to a fight anytime, anywhere. For this reason, you cannot compare Seattle’s music scene to the Strip because to this day a lot of those bands that are still connected absolutely hate each other. These musicians would actually be members of multiple bands at any one time. In a VH1 documentary, the drummer from Quiet Riot said that before they were signed to a record deal, he had been in at least five bands at one time. One of the reasons for this also emerged in the fact that playing these clubs did not make you any money. All of these groups that would become very famous and very rich in the next few years were also struggling to find enough to eat or a place to sleep. For their part, Guns N’ Roses lived in a tiny apartment infested with cockroaches and squalor. Journalists have referred to their existence before Appetite For Destruction as street urchins. Their only saving grace was the financial assistance of waitresses and strippers, who served these bands as groupies. The females in Los Angeles at that time were completely enamored with any guy in a hair metal band. Half the time, they did not even care if you were any good or not.

With the arrival of Axl Rose on the music scene, one thing stood out at that time. Word began to spread that there was this singer, who gave off this incredibly intense and mesmerizing energy every time that he performed. The other guys in GNR always had to audition for any group, but Rose was wanted by every band on the scene that did not have a singer. Everyone wanted him to front their band. The second that this happened probably was the beginning of the end as far as Axl acting in any way humble towards his other bandmates. The question now becomes as to how the particular members of Guns N’ Roses actually came together. One answer to that was that Rose truly wanted to be in a band with Izzy Stradlin. They had been in one together with Hollywood Rose, but at the time of GNR’s formation, they were still trying for their own band. As for the other members, it represented a situation of the right place at the right time. Slash could have been in Poison by that time, but he still remained a free agent. Tracii Guns could have decided that he wanted to remain in that group with Axl Rose, but he did not. One important thing to remember is that unlike other groups, the guys in Guns N’ Roses really did not know each other too well when they got together. Axl and Izzy had been friends, while Slash, Steven Adler, and Duff knew each other quite well.

As for the scene itself, by the time of the release of Appetite For Destruction hair metal was slowly beginning to wear out its welcome. The death knell would not occur until the arrival of grunge in 1991. Yet, GNR did contribute just a little bit to this backlash as they represented something that was very anti-hair metal. They went out of their way to make sure the media portrayed them as a rock band like the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith, instead of any kind of hair metal band. Their behavior and actions followed up on this. Bands of that time like Poison and Motley Crue had gotten more and more outrageous and ridiculous in their blatant attempts to gain the attention of this new MTV generation. GNR changed things a little bit because everything that they did from drugs to sex to fights to snarky interviews was meant to be 100% real. For a time, the band had teased their hair and put on glam makeup, but they quickly stopped doing that for a new image. They made an overt attempt to scare the crap out of people showing fans and writers alike that they did not give a shit about anything or anyone, except themselves. This is not to say that each member was completely selfish, but instead that the only thing that mattered in their lives was the band. By the early 1990’s, this camaraderie between band members was slowly withering away as Rose began to exert more and more control over the group. The arrival of Nirvana and the bands from Seattle signaled the end of this music scene being the epicenter of popular rock in the United States. The death of River Phoenix in 1993 at the Viper Room foreshadowed the end of the strip as party central. Soon enough, more and more hotels began to pop up as that part of Los Angeles soon embraced tourists, rather than local musicians.

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